Bush and Military Service

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Bush and Military Service
134
Tue, 02-10-2004 - 12:53pm
By Richard Cohen

Tuesday, February 10, 2004; Page A23


During the Vietnam War, I was what filmmaker Michael Moore would call a "deserter." Along with President Bush and countless other young men, I joined the National Guard, did my six months of active duty (basic training, etc.) and then returned to my home unit, where I eventually dropped from sight. In the end, just like President Bush, I got an honorable discharge. But unlike President Bush, I have just told the truth about my service. He hasn't.





At least I don't think so. Nothing about Bush during that period -- not his drinking, not his partying -- suggests that he was a consistently conscientious member of the Texas or Alabama Air National Guard. As it happens, there are no records to show that Bush reported for duty during the summer and fall of 1972. Nonetheless, Bush insists he was where he was supposed to be -- "Otherwise I wouldn't have been honorably discharged," Bush told Tim Russert. Please, sir, don't make me laugh.

It is sort of amazing that every four or eight years, Vietnam -- that long-ago war -- rears up from seemingly nowhere and comes to figure in the national political debate. In 1988 Dan Quayle had to answer for his National Guard service. In 1992 Bill Clinton had to grapple with the question of how he avoided the Vietnam-era draft. Now George Bush, who faced this question the last time out, has to face it again. The reason is that this time he is likely to compete against a genuine war hero. John Kerry did not duck the war.

But George Bush did. He did so by joining the National Guard. Bush now wants to drape the Vietnam-era Guard with the bloodied flag of today's Iraq-serving Guard -- "I wouldn't denigrate service to the Guard," Bush warned during his interview with Russert -- but the fact remained that back then the Guard was where you went if you did not want to fight. That was the case with me. I opposed the war in Vietnam and had no desire to fight it. Bush, on the other hand, says he supported the war -- as long, it seems, as someone else fought it.

It hardly matters what Bush did or did not do back in 1972. He is not the man now he was then -- that by his own admission. In the same way, it did not matter that Clinton ducked the draft, because, really, just about everyone I knew at the time was doing something similar. All that really matters is how one accounts for what one did. Do you tell the truth (which Clinton did not)? Or do you do what I think Bush has been doing, which is making his National Guard service into something it was not? In his case, it was a rich kid's way around the draft.

In my case, it was something similar -- although (darn!) I was not rich. I was, though, lucky enough to get into a National Guard unit in the nick of time, about a day before I was drafted. I did my basic and advanced training (combat engineer) and returned to my unit. I was supposed to attend weekly drills and summer camp, but I found them inconvenient. I "moved" to California and then "moved" back to New York, establishing a confusing paper trail that led, really, nowhere. For two years or so, I played a perfectly legal form of hooky. To show you what a mess the Guard was at the time, I even got paid for all the meetings I missed.

In the end, I wound up in the Army Reserve. I was assigned to units for which I had no training -- tank repairman, for instance. In some units, we sat around with nothing to do and in one we took turns delivering antiwar lectures. The National Guard and the Reserves were something of a joke. Everyone knew it. Books have been written about it. Maybe things changed dramatically by 1972, two years after I got my discharge, but I kind of doubt it.

I have no shame about my service, but I know it for what it was -- hardly the Charge of the Light Brigade. When Bush attempts to drape the flag of today's Guard over the one he was in so long ago, when he warns his critics to remember that "there are a lot of really fine people who have served in the National Guard and who are serving in the National Guard today in Iraq," then he is doing now what he was doing then: hiding behind the ones who were really doing the fighting. It's about time he grew up.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27178-2004Feb9.html

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iVillage Member
Registered: 07-25-2003
Tue, 02-10-2004 - 11:13pm
The documents indicate Bush received pay for six days of duty between May and December of 1972 when he was assigned to temporary duty in Alabama.

Renee

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-25-2003
Tue, 02-10-2004 - 11:13pm
He only needed to report for a physical if he was flying. By that point he'd already racked up all the flight time he needed, and was assigned to a unit that only existed on paper that was just a holding tank for people like him who were waiting for their discharge, but who didn't report for any duty let alone fly time.

Renee

Avatar for car_al
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Wed, 02-11-2004 - 12:24am
Those of us who had loved ones serving during Vietnam are paying very close attention to this issue and it does matter.

C

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-25-2003
Wed, 02-11-2004 - 12:33am
It certainly does.

John Kerry: Shredding documents and abandoning veterans

John Kerry is running as a Vietnam veteran. The Kerry campaign Web site states: "When John Kerry returned home from Vietnam, he joined his fellow veterans in vowing never to abandon future veterans of America's wars. Kerry's commitment to veterans has never wavered and stands strong to this day." But Kerry's resume tells a very different story.

Kerry's actions in Vietnam were heroic, but his actions upon his return were inexcusable. Kerry associated with the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, a rabid anti-war group that defamed United States soldiers and often protested under the banner of the Viet Cong.

Kerry testified before Congress that American soldiers had "raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs ... poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam." He has never named anyone who committed these atrocious acts and admits that he never witnessed these war crimes. Kerry's words certainly contributed to fortifying Viet Cong morale and promoting Viet Cong interests.

Kerry's abandonment of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam wasn't over yet. When he became a senator, Kerry continued to stab Vietnam soldiers in the back. Kerry began pushing normalization of trade with Vietnam. To that purpose, he founded the Senate Select Committee for POW/MIA Affairs. Kerry became chair of the committee. In order to normalize trade, the Vietnamese government would have to prove that its hands were now clean with regard to POW/MIAs.

Kerry tried to erase the possibility that prisoners of war were still alive in captivity in Vietnam. I spoke Monday evening with Mike Benge, a POW/MIA activist. Benge was a civilian POW held from 1968 until 1973 by the North Vietnamese Army; he spent 27 months in solitary confinement, one year in a "black box," and one year in a cage in Cambodia. Benge accuses Sen. Kerry of shredding key papers documenting "live sightings of POWs in Vietnam and Laos" during the POW/MIA hearings. According to Benge, Kerry attempted to shred all copies to prevent leaks and future declassification of the materials.

John F. McCreary, a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst assigned to Kerry's committee, reported knowledge of Kerry's document shredding to Vice Chairman Bob Smith. A memorandum by McCreary explains: "Senator John Kerry ... told the Select Committee members that 'all copies' would be destroyed. This statement was made in the presence of the undersigned and of the Staff Chief Counsel who offered no protest." On April 9, 1992, McCreary verified that the original document was destroyed, as well as 14 copies. The memo continues: "On 15 April 1992, the Staff Chief Counsel, J. William Codinha ... ridiculed the Staff members for expressing their concerns; and replied, in response to questions about the potential consequences, 'Who's the injured party,' and 'How are they going to find out because its classified.'"

On April 16, Kerry stated that the original documents had remained in the Office of Senate Security all along, so nothing wrong had been done. Actually, this was not the case, according to McCreary: "the Staff Director had deposited a copy of the intelligence briefing text in the Office of Senate Security at 1307 on 16 April." In a classic CYA maneuver, Kerry had ordered a non-original copy of the document entered into the Office of Senate Security -- but only after protests from staff caused him to rethink complete destruction of the documents. As McCreary stated, this "constitute(d) an act to cover-up the destruction."

Mike Benge also told me that Kerry hung one POW/MIA testifier out to dry. Garnett "Bill" Bell was chief of the U.S. Office of POW/MIA Affairs in Hanoi when he testified before the Senate Select Committee. Benge says that he brokered a deal with Bell: Kerry would grant Bell immunity from retaliation by the Defense Department if Bell testified. Bell testified; the immunity never came. Bell was fired, Benge stated.

Normalization for Vietnam passed overwhelmingly in the Senate, largely due to Kerry's persistence. Kerry's pro-normalization views seem particularly strong when viewed in comparison with Kerry's other foreign-policy positions. Kerry has flip-flopped repeatedly on the war in Iraq, but his support for the Vietnamese government has been unwavering. According to Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby, in 2002 Kerry blocked the Vietnam Human Rights Act from coming to a vote.

Is John Kerry committed to Vietnam veterans? Perhaps the ones back in the United States. But for the Vietnam soldiers who died because Kerry provided aid and comfort to the Viet Cong, or the POWs who may have lived out their lives in cages, Kerry's lack of commitment had tragic consequences.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/bs20040211.shtml

Renee

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 02-11-2004 - 3:52am
That's not what the two generals said. He was supposed to report for the physical, flying or not. Actually, I'm not surprised. If Papa Bush could get Dubya into the Guard, Dubya probably figured Papa could get him out. By that time in 1973, Vietnam was winding down and it must have looked like a safe bet to leave the Guard.

I wouldn't care myself except that this man is acting like he thinks he's above reproach. Seems to think he has a moral mandate. What a hoot.

Gettingahandle

Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Wed, 02-11-2004 - 10:06am

"The Democrats have never been ones to let something like TRUTH get in the way of a good campaign. "


Clinton was a great example of this, wasn't he! LOL. he always told the truth, especially when it came to those who should be the most important to him, his family.


Debbie

------------------------------------


~ ~ Follow your passion!:&n

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Wed, 02-11-2004 - 11:23am
February 11, 2004

The President's Guard Service



If President Bush thought that his release of selected payroll and service records would quell the growing controversy over whether he ducked some of his required service in the Air National Guard three decades ago, he is clearly mistaken. The payroll records released yesterday document that he performed no guard duties at all for more than half a year in 1972 and raise questions about how he could be credited with at least 14 days of duty during subsequent periods when his superior officers in two units said they had not seen him.

Investigative reporting by The Boston Globe, our sibling newspaper, revealed in 2000 that Mr. Bush had reported for duty and flown regularly in his first four Texas Guard years but dropped off the Guard's radar screen when he went to Alabama to work on a senatorial campaign. The payroll records show that he was paid for many days of duty in the first four months of 1972, when he was in Texas, but then went more than six months without being paid, virtually the entire time he was working on the Senate campaign in Alabama. That presumably means he never reported for duty during that period.

Mr. Bush was credited with 14 days of service at unspecified locations between Oct. 28, 1972, and the end of April 1973. The commanding officer of the Alabama unit to which Mr. Bush was supposed to report long ago said that he had never seen him appear for duty, and Mr. Bush's superiors at the Texas unit to which he returned wrote in May 1973 that they could not write an annual evaluation of him because he had not been seen there during that year. Those statements are so jarringly at odds with the payroll data that they demand further elaboration. A Guard memo prepared for the White House by a former Guard official says Mr. Bush earned enough points to fulfill his duty but leaves it unclear whether he got special treatment.

The issue is not whether Mr. Bush, like many sons of the elite in his generation, sought refuge in the Guard to avoid combat in Vietnam. The public knew about that during the 2000 campaign. Whether Mr. Bush actually performed his Guard service to the full is a different matter. It bears on presidential character because the president has continually rejected claims that there was anything amiss about his Guard performance during the Alabama period. Mr. Bush himself also made the issue of military service fair game by posturing as a swashbuckling pilot when welcoming a carrier home from Iraq. Now, the president needs to make a fuller explanation of how he spent his last two years in the Guard.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/11/opinion/11WED1.html

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 02-11-2004 - 11:40am
Here is one from the Associated Press that basically answers the question. (BTW, the NYT and Boston Globe are going to put their spin on it, even though the NYT did an investigation back in 2000 and basically came to the same conclusion as many are reaching today.....there is nothing to the story)

Feb 11, 11:01 AM EST

Spokesman Defends Bush's Military Service

By DEB RIECHMANN

Associated Press Writer



WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush's spokesman said Wednesday that Democrats who continue to demand more proof that the president reported for National Guard duty in Alabama are "trolling for trash."

Bush said in a television interview over the weekend that he would be willing to open up his entire military file, and would "absolutely" be willing to authorize the release of anything that would settle the controversy over his service in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan appeared to step back from that pledge, telling reporters: "If there is new information that comes to our attention we will let you know - if it's relevant to this issue."

"I think what you're seeing is gutter politics," McClellan said. "The American people deserve better. There are some who are not interested in the facts. They are simply trolling for trash" for political gain.

"The president recalls serving both when he was in Texas and when he was in Alabama," McClellan said Tuesday, holding up a 13-page packet of military records. "We have provided you these documents that show clearly that the president of the United States fulfilled his duties and that is the reason that he was honorably discharged from the National Guard."

The records, some being released for the first time, didn't satisfy Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe. He argued that the payroll and summary service records posed more questions than they answered.

"The fact remains that there is still no evidence that George W. Bush showed up for duty as ordered while in Alabama," McAuliffe said.

McAuliffe helped resurrect long-running questions about Bush's National Guard record earlier this month when he charged that the president had been "AWOL," or absent without leave during his time in Alabama. Democrats have been raising questions again about Bush's service, especially since Vietnam War veteran John Kerry has taken the lead to become Bush's opponent in the upcoming presidential election.

Kerry stayed silent on the subject Tuesday.

"I just don't have any comment on it," he told reporters between campaign stops in Tennessee and Virginia. "It's not an issue that I chose to create. It's not my record that's at issue and I don't have any questions about it."

Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard in 1968, and spent most of his service time based near Houston. From May to November 1972, however, Bush received permission to perform his duties in Alabama while he worked as political director on the Senate campaign of Winton "Red" Blount," a Bush family friend.

In a memo included in the packet of payroll and other records, retired Lt. Col. Albert Lloyd Jr., former personnel director of the Texas Air National Guard, stood behind Bush's service record. He wrote that the records show Bush had "satisfactory years" for the period of 1972-73 and 1973-74 "which proves that he completed his military obligation in a satisfactory manner."

But while McClellan insists that Bush "recalls serving in Alabama," the records do not show that Bush was paid for any service between May and September 1972. Records show he requested and received permission for the temporary Alabama duty in May and that a three-month transfer to a unit in Montgomery was formally approved on Sept. 6. Bush was paid for two days in October 1972 and four days in November 1972, but the pay records do not say where he served on those days, or what he did.

"This paperwork doesn't say where he was or what type of training he conducted," said Lt. Col. Scott Gorske, a military fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "What it does say is the days that he did train and that he got paid."

He said National Guard members are not necessarily required to attend a drill each month, but rather to train a certain amount of time over a 12-month period. That is why Bush could have met his yearly service requirements even if there were some months in which he did not attend a drill, Gorske said.

Retired Brig. Gen. William Turnipseed, who commanded the 187th Tactical Recon Group in Montgomery, told The Associated Press in May 2000 that he did not recall Bush reporting for duty there. "To my knowledge, he never showed up," Turnipseed said then.

On Tuesday, he told the AP that he was not sure whether he was even on the base during the time Bush was assigned there. Moreover, he said: "In 1972, I didn't even know he was supposed to come. I didn't know that until 2000. I'm not saying that he wasn't there. If he said he was there, I believe it. I don't remember seeing him."

McClellan accused the Democrats of resurrecting a controversy that the Bush campaign tamped down in 2000. Calling allegations by McAuliffe and others as "baseless" and "outrageous," McClellan said they want to twist the facts to seek a partisan, political, election-year advantage.

While Kerry, who earned three Purple Hearts, surrounds himself with fellow veterans on the campaign trail, the White House has not been able to produce fellow guardsmen who could attest to Bush's attendance at meetings and drills. "Obviously we would have made people available" if they had been found, McClellan said.

Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved.



Avatar for independentgrrrl
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Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 02-11-2004 - 12:07pm
Letters to the Editor

'Bush and I were lieutenants'



George Bush and I were lieutenants and pilots in the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron (FIS), Texas Air National Guard (ANG) from 1970 to 1971. We had the same flight and squadron commanders (Maj. William Harris and Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, both now deceased). While we were not part of the same social circle outside the base, we were in the same fraternity of fighter pilots, and proudly wore the same squadron patch.



It is quite frustrating to hear the daily cacophony from the left and Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, et al., about Lt. Bush escaping his military responsibilities by hiding in the Texas ANG. In the Air Guard during the Vietnam War, you were always subject to call-up, as many Air National Guardsmen are finding out today. If the 111th FIS and Lt. Bush did not go to Vietnam, blame President Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, not lowly Lt. Bush. They deliberately avoided use of the Guard and Reserves for domestic political calculations, knowing that a draftee only stirred up the concerns of one family, while a call-up got a whole community's attention.



The mission of the 147th Fighter Group and its subordinate 111th FIS, Texas ANG, and the airplane it possessed, the F-102, was air defense. It was focused on defending the continental United States from Soviet nuclear bombers. The F-102 could not drop bombs and would have been useless in Vietnam. A pilot program using ANG volunteer pilots in F-102s (called Palace Alert) was scrapped quickly after the airplane proved to be unsuitable to the war effort. Ironically, Lt. Bush did inquire about this program but was advised by an ANG supervisor (Maj. Maurice Udell, retired) that he did not have the desired experience (500 hours) at the time and that the program was winding down and not accepting more volunteers.



If you check the 111th FIS records of 1970-72 and any other ANG squadron, you will find other pilots excused for career obligations and conflicts. The Bush excusal in 1972 was further facilitated by a change in the unit's mission, from an operational fighter squadron to a training squadron with a new airplane, the F-101, which required that more pilots be available for full-time instructor duty rather than part-time traditional reservists with outside employment.



The winding down of the Vietnam War in 1971 provided a flood of exiting active-duty pilots for these instructor jobs, making part-timers like Lt. Bush and me somewhat superfluous. There was a huge glut of pilots in the Air Force in 1972, and with no cockpits available to put them in, many were shoved into nonflying desk jobs. Any pilot could have left the Air Force or the Air Guard with ease after 1972 before his commitment was up because there just wasn't room for all of them anymore.



Sadly, few of today's partisan pundits know anything about the environment of service in the Reserves in the 1970s. The image of a reservist at that time is of one who joined, went off for six months' basic training, then came back and drilled weekly or monthly at home, with two weeks of "summer camp." With the knowledge that Mr. Johnson and Mr. McNamara were not going to call out the Reserves, it did become a place of refuge for many wanting to avoid Vietnam.



There was one big exception to this abusive use of the Guard to avoid the draft, and that was for those who wanted to fly, as pilots or crew members. Because of the training required, signing up for this duty meant up to 2½ years of active duty for training alone, plus a high probability of mobilization. A fighter-pilot candidate selected by the Guard (such as Lt. Bush and me) would be spending the next two years on active duty going through basic training (six weeks), flight training (one year), survival training (two weeks) and combat crew training for his aircraft (six to nine months), followed by local checkout (up to three more months) before he was even deemed combat-ready. Because the draft was just two years, you sure weren't getting out of duty being an Air Guard pilot. If the unit to which you were going back was an F-100, you were mobilized for Vietnam. Avoiding service? Yeah, tell that to those guys.



The Bush critics do not comprehend the dangers of fighter aviation at any time or place, in Vietnam or at home, when they say other such pilots were risking their lives or even dying while Lt. Bush was in Texas. Our Texas ANG unit lost several planes right there in Houston during Lt. Bush's tenure, with fatalities. Just strapping on one of those obsolescing F-102s was risking one's life.



Critics such as Mr. Kerry (who served in Vietnam, you know), Terry McAuliffe and Michael Moore (neither of whom served anywhere) say Lt. Bush abandoned his assignment as a jet fighter pilot without explanation or authorization and was AWOL from the Alabama Air Guard.



Well, as for abandoning his assignment, this is untrue. Lt. Bush was excused for a period to take employment in Florida for a congressman and later in Alabama for a Senate campaign.



Excusals for employment were common then and are now in the Air Guard, as pilots frequently are in career transitions, and most commanders (as I later was) are flexible in letting their charges take care of career affairs until they return or transfer to another unit near their new employment. Sometimes they will transfer temporarily to another unit to keep them on the active list until they can return home. The receiving unit often has little use for a transitory member, especially in a high-skills category like a pilot, because those slots usually are filled and, if not filled, would require extensive conversion training of up to six months, an unlikely option for a temporary hire.



As a commander, I would put such "visitors" in some minor administrative post until they went back home. There even were a few instances when I was unaware that they were on my roster because the paperwork often lagged. Today, I can't even recall their names. If a Lt. Bush came into my unit to "pull drills" for a couple of months, I wouldn't be too involved with him because I would have a lot more important things on my table keeping the unit combat ready.



Another frequent charge is that, as a member of the Texas ANG, Lt. Bush twice ignored or disobeyed lawful orders, first by refusing to report for a required physical in the year when drug testing first became part of the exam, and second by failing to report for duty at the disciplinary unit in Colorado to which he had been ordered. Well, here are the facts:



First, there is no instance of Lt. Bush disobeying lawful orders in reporting for a physical, as none would be given. Pilots are scheduled for their annual flight physicals in their birth month during that month's weekend drill assembly — the only time the clinic is open. In the Reserves, it is not uncommon to miss this deadline by a month or so for a variety of reasons: The clinic is closed that month for special training; the individual is out of town on civilian business; etc.



If so, the pilot is grounded temporarily until he completes the physical. Also, the formal drug testing program was not instituted by the Air Force until the 1980s and is done randomly by lot, not as a special part of a flight physical, when one easily could abstain from drug use because of its date certain. Blood work is done, but to ensure a healthy pilot, not confront a drug user.



Second, there was no such thing as a "disciplinary unit in Colorado" to which Lt. Bush had been ordered. The Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver is a repository of the paperwork for those no longer assigned to a specific unit, such as retirees and transferees. Mine is there now, so I guess I'm "being disciplined." These "disciplinary units" just don't exist. Any discipline, if required, is handled within the local squadron, group or wing, administratively or judicially. Had there been such an infraction or court-martial action, there would be a record and a reflection in Lt. Bush's performance review and personnel folder. None exists, as was confirmed in The Washington Post in 2000.



Finally, the Kerrys, Moores and McAuliffes are casting a terrible slander on those who served in the Guard, then and now. My Guard career parallels Lt. Bush's, except that I stayed on for 33 years. As a guardsman, I even got to serve in two campaigns. In the Cold War, the air defense of the United States was borne primarily by the Air National Guard, by such people as Lt. Bush and me and a lot of others. Six of those with whom I served in those years never made their 30th birthdays because they died in crashes flying air-defense missions.



While most of America was sleeping and Mr. Kerry was playing antiwar games with Hanoi Jane Fonda, we were answering 3 a.m. scrambles for who knows what inbound threat over the Canadian subarctic, the cold North Atlantic and the shark-filled Gulf of Mexico. We were the pathfinders in showing that the Guard and Reserves could become reliable members of the first team in the total force, so proudly evidenced today in Afghanistan and Iraq.



It didn't happen by accident. It happened because back at the nadir of Guard fortunes in the early '70s, a lot of volunteer guardsman showed they were ready and able to accept the responsibilities of soldier and citizen — then and now. Lt. Bush was a kid whose congressman father encouraged him to serve in the Air National Guard. We served proudly in the Guard. Would that Mr. Kerry encourage his children and the children of his colleague senators and congressmen to serve now in the Guard.



In the fighter-pilot world, we have a phrase we use when things are starting to get out of hand and it's time to stop and reset before disaster strikes. We say, "Knock it off." So, Mr. Kerry and your friends who want to slander the Guard: Knock it off.





COL. WILLIAM CAMPENNI (retired)



U.S. Air Force/Air National Guard



Herndon, Va.5

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27178-2004Feb9.html

**************************************************************

Now what was that about President Bush using the NG to dodge the draft?

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Wed, 02-11-2004 - 12:08pm
I agree. Personally, I would have done whatever was necessary to avoid going to Vietnam, but I resent the way some are so willing to give GW a pass on this while the are so critical of others. I think it is funny that the Repubs can't find anybody willing to say they saw him serve during the period he said he was serving and even though he got the required "points" for service, those in command (or whatever they call it) didn't seem him on duty! Sounds to me like Daddy B. was fixing things once again.

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